Daily Reflection and Prayer
God's Gardeners
1.11.08 , Laity Lodge Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence
We're excited to announce our new daily devotionals for 2008 written by Mark D. Roberts exclusively for TheHighCalling.org! Eugene Petersen's devotionals are still available in our archives, and his study of Luke can be found in 2003 if you scroll down to January.
God's Gardeners
"The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it."
What an amazing act of delegation! God made a perfect, beautiful world, and then turned it over to the man. Here's the beginning of human management over God's creation, or to use more theological language, human stewardship.
Even though human beings will soon make a mess of what God had intended, he did not choose to remove us from our role as his "gardeners." We are still responsible for God's creation. Our calling is to protect it and use it well for God's glory.
What has God entrusted to you? How can you manage it well for his purposes?
PRAYER: God our Creator, you have given us a prized position in this world. We are to tend and watch over your garden. Thank you for this honor.
Help us, Gracious God, to manage responsibly what you have entrusted to us. Give us wisdom to know how best to guard and use the parts of this world over which you have given us authority: our workplaces, our families, our homes, our finances, our churches. May we be faithful stewards in all things, for your glory. Amen.
Mark D. Roberts, as Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge, is an advisor and frequent contributor to TheHighCalling.org. A Presbyterian pastor, Mark earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Harvard University. He has written six books, including No Holds Barred: Wrestling with God in Prayer (WaterBrook, 2005). He blogs daily at blog.beliefnet.com/markdroberts.
READER'S COMMENTS
I appreciate Mark's reminder of what God has entrusted into our care, but think about this a little more. Not only should we steward (tending and watching over) what he has given us, but we should also understand it.How can we be proper stewards of something we don't understand well? And how can we understand something unless we study it and explore it.
In other words, our "high calling" encompasses a lot more than we often think about. Our study, our learning, our investigations, our seeking wisdom is all needed to truly steward well what He has entrusted into our hands. And in this we need to walk hand-in-hand with Him in the cool of the day letting Him point out things to us.
Dean
http://RealClearTruth.com